To Make Music Without Tradition.

The legacy of Gabriel “Gabi” Delgado-López

As one of the founding members of the infamous German Electro-Punk duo DAF (Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaf) Gabi Delgado-Lopez helped shape the modern dance floor to what it is today. Over four decades Gabi consistently battled against ‘Anglo-American Pop imperialism’ with his undeniably disruptive back catalog, which since has mapped the blueprints for generations to follow.

Rightfully known as the creators of EBM, DAF emerged as a five-piece punk outfit made up of Gabi Delgado-López, Robert Görl, Kurt “Pyrolator” Dahlke, Michael Kemner, and Wolfgang Spelman's. In 1979 they released their debut album entitled ‘Ein Produkt der Deutsch-Amerikanischen Freundschaft’. Here, the band displayed their recognizably disruptive industrial take on punk, this time purely instrumentally as Gabi was not featured on the album due to disagreements over early recordings.

The band returned in 1980 with the follow-up album ‘Die Kleinen und die Bösen’ for the first-ever release on the notorious Mute Records. Following this, the band broke down to the duo of Delgado-López and Görl, whose shared approach utilized early Korg synthesizers and drum machines, complemented by often political vocal chants expressing sharp disapproval of totalitarianism and American Pop culture. The result was music that couldn’t be ignored, stepping away from any traditions and standing confidently on its own two feet.

From here the duo found huge commercial success with a trilogy of records for Virgin including ‘Alles Ist Gut,’ ‘Gold Und Liebe’ and ‘Für Immer’ becoming the fifth highest-selling German-language act in Germany and cover stars of NME magazine. DAF split up and got back together countless times over the years. During these periods Delgado had a productive solo career starting with 1983’s Mistress and then working under many different aliases and collaborations including Neue Weltumfassende Resistance’s, Delkom, Deutschland Terzett alongside many others. This makes it impossible to pin down a favorite track from his 41-year career, but here are five of my stand-outs:

DAF — Kebabträume

Translating to ‘Kebab Dreams’, this track was featured on their ‘Alles Ist gut’ album the last of which the duo put out on Virgin Records. Though immediately appearing to be a space-age punk-disco club track, its energetic synth lines, German chants, and gritty live drumming carry a serious political message with lyrics that comment on Berlin’s national divisions and the treatment of Turkish immigrants. The band criticizes the country’s ‘Gastarbeiter’ program, which allowed Turkish immigrants to work as ‘Guest workers’ in Germany for two years, stating that “Turkish culture [is] behind barbed wire”, while also proclaiming that ‘Miliyet (A Turkish daily newspaper) backs the Soviet Union’.

Gabi Delgado — Sex Goddess

Taken from Gabi’s first solo project entitled ‘Mistress’ released in 1983 on Virgin Records, Sex Goddess was very different from anything we’d heard from Gabi before. This was a lot more acoustic-focused, taking influence from Jazz and Funk, utilizing slap-bass guitars, trombones, and trumpets whilst still casting with a dark broken punk aesthetic which made you know instantly this was a Delgado track. The vocals were different from what we’d grown to expect from Gabi at this point: much more modest, allowing the instruments to breakthrough because of the smaller vocal presence. Shockingly, the lyrics were all in English, rather than German, something Gabi had previously refused to do.

Gabi — “In fact, we think there is a very strong American influence in culture, television, music, everywhere. So, in the very first beginning, one of our main content was to refuse to imitate rock ’n’ roll, to refuse to sing in English. We don’t do that. We have our own identity. Our identity is not American identity.”

DAF — Absolute Body Control

Probably my favorite club track by DAF, ‘Absolute Body Control’ featured on their 1985 return album under the same name. By this point, the duo had begun their descent into disco. Delgado and Görl had distilled their style yet further into something resembling glittering synth-pop releasing a string of Italo- inspired club hits all sang in English such as this ‘Absolute Body Control’, ‘Brothers’, ‘The Gun’ and a few others. Even though this track has a similar aesthetic to some of the music coming out of other places at this time, such as from Cosmic in Italy, this was a lot more aggressive, harnessing disco’s pleasure principle to punk’s energy to create something new. Robert stated that “We wanted to bring muscles. We did punk as electronic — very energetic, very body- orientated.” These tracks were vital in the development of the early Belgium New Beat Sound, inspiring artists such as Erotic Dissidents & Nitzer Ebb.

Delkom — Viva la Droga

Delkom was one of Gabi’s collaborations with Berlin-based vocalist, Saba Komossa. This was one of their many projects together, alongside Two German Latinos & Future Perfect. In each we see Gabi step back from vocals and focus solely on the production. Creating attention-grabbing melodies and soft yet driving drum arrangement, the production perfectly complements Saba’s enchanting vocals in a way that still sounds fresh nearly 40 years later.

Gabi- “Today 80 percent of the music that is played in clubs is produced according to DAF rules. There is no stanza and no chorus. What we created in music was, how to say, from the steam engine to the combustion engine.”

DAF — Der Mussolini

Gabi’s avant-garde Punk vocals were always the centerpiece of a DAF track, these chants were often very precise and minimalistic, making their political messages clear and unmistakable. One of their most celebrated, yet controversial tracks was Des Mussolini, which famously mocked Adolf Hilter and the robotic goose-stepping march of Nazi soldiers with the lyrics — “Turn to the right and clap your hands and do the Adolf Hitler; Dance the Adolf Hitler!” combined with a gritty MS20 and fast-paced repetitive drum patterns fundamentally reducing Germany’s uncomfortable Nazi heritage to a novelty dancefloor craze. Already renowned for their love of provocation, this took it to new extremes.

The effect Gabriel Delgado-López had on subsequent musical genres to follow is nearly impossible to articulate. No one has shaken apart the ‘rules’ like him, following his own ethos and ideas. This allowed him to craft his unique sound, which has since mapped the instructions for generations to follow leaving a legacy that would be impossible to imitate and will never be forgotten.

(Piece wrote in tribute to Gabriel Delgado-Lopez 18 April 1958- 22 March 2020)

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